


Nonproblematic

by Anonymous



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Autistic Character, Basically the tone of the whole fic, Consent Issues, Depression, Don’t Knock Christine Dammit, Emotional Neglect?, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Kinda, Major Self-Worth Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, again kinda, autistic christine, but they’re very brief and subtle so good luck, fucking abcs of misery, if you can name all of them with no google you win a prize, in fact I’ll repeat it, make of this what you will, parental neglect, the kindas are because I’m not sure if I’m overblowing this or if it’s actually a big deal, there are two brief musical references not counting the songdrop, wow we had an alphabetical tag streak there, yes this is the person who wrote Michael Has A Problem what’s it to you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 09:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Deep down, I... just want things to be easy.”A mostly-vent partially-character study about Christine and that chilling line in Voices In Our Heads.





	Nonproblematic

She’s three years old, and her mom is handing her her baby sister for the first time. She’s been hoping for this for months. But it’s not happening because she’s earned the privilege.

 

“Hold her for a few, okay? I need to take care of these,” her mom says, holding a half-full laundry basket.

 

Christine nods, and turns her attention to her sister.

 

She does a very good job of holding her. Her mom thanks her when she comes back, and then takes the baby away and leaves her sitting there.

 

-

 

She’s four years old, and church with Dad’s parents is boring, and she’s grinding her teeth because she needs to do something with them and her fingernails are already gone. She got yelled at for that earlier.

 

Her mom lightly slaps her on the arm.

 

“Stop grinding your teeth, you’ll ruin them.”

 

Christine does, even though her mouth begs her to bite and grind and do something. She fidgets in her seat and is glared at. A glare is private, she can work with a glare. She keeps fidgeting, but only a bit, so that no one else gets mad.

 

-

 

She’s six, and she’s riding the bus to her first day of school. She gets on in the empty middle of the bus, but near the back so that she can be near the cool older kids. She wants to make friends, she’s never really had one before.

 

She winds up talking to a few, and they become close. They tell her to do things and she does them and they laugh and they like her. It’s nice to be liked.

 

One of them tells her to kiss one of the oldest boys on the bus, a fifth grader. She does it without hesitation.

 

When she tells her parents about it later, her dad is angry and her mom says she isn’t supposed to do that. She doesn’t understand… isn’t she supposed to do what people want?

 

She then understands.

 

Contact is bad unless her parents have said it’s okay. Any non-parent contact will have to be secret. She can’t just take anything like that.

 

-

 

She’s seven, and she’s in too deep over her head with the more difficult curriculum that the school’s given her. It’s not that it’s hard on its own, but it’s boring and she has to do the third-grade and second-grade versions at the same time. She just doesn’t do it, hiding the failed and undone papers in her closet.

 

When she eventually is forced to confess because her parents found them, they take away her books and music for three weeks. They can’t take away her friends- she still doesn’t have any.

 

She learns not to tell people about her problems.

 

-

 

She’s eight, and she’s crying herself to sleep every night and as soon as she gets home, too, because that Grace won’t stop telling lies about her and people laugh at her when she cries out of anger and no one likes her, because she’s just not good with people and talking but she _wants_ to be, she just doesn’t understand it, and she doesn’t have any friends, except the people that she likes to yell at Grace’s friends with. They don’t really like her, though.

 

She’s playing at jumping off cliffs at recess and trying to bury herself in the gravel. She hides in books- she can’t hear the laughter then. She aces every test with no problem, shoves her perfect grades in the other kids faces and laughs, because at least she can win at something.

 

She gets called in for bullying them.

 

She learns not to do anything, even if her parents don’t know about it, because people won’t understand. She should just keep things to herself.

 

-

 

She’s ten, and she’s at a new school now that her family left Kentucky and live in New Jersey. She’s sitting at lunch, talking to people- actually talking! and one of her friends starts teasing her about her one guy-friend, Thomas.

 

“I know he likes you!” she says.

 

“But I don’t like him!” Christine replies.

 

“Don’t liiiiiiiie, I know you like to talk to him!”

 

“Yeah, because he’s funny!”

 

It’s an argument that’s pointless, because she does like him.

 

She does, right?

 

Everyone says she does.

 

-

 

She’s eleven, and she has only two friends, but it’s two more than ever. But one of them (Thomas, who she has a crush on) doesn’t want her to sit with them, and the other one doesn’t have the same lunch as her because she’s a year younger. She eats lunch alone with her nose in a book, in a different spot every day, depending on where is emptiest. People side-eye her constantly, so she tries to keep her backpack _too big_ and her legs _too fat_ and her arms _uncoordinated_ to herself, not getting in anyone’s space.

 

She doesn’t matter enough to take up as much space as she wants.

 

-

 

She’s twelve, and she’s crying to her friend (?) Alana, because her plans are falling apart (it’s not her fault she’s only been able to think about My Little Pony for three months) and she tried to dance with her older friend but it scared her and she was gonna dance with Thomas but now she’s scared and Alana wanted to dance with Thomas and everything is terrible and it’s all her fault.

 

“Maybe you just don’t like him,” she says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say.

 

“Of course I do!”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because, I…” she trails off.

 

Christine can’t think of a good answer.

 

Thomas offers her his hand the next day.

 

She doesn’t take it.

 

-

 

She’s thirteen, and she doesn’t know why they don’t like her.

 

She’s never invited to anything with her friends. They don’t involve her in the conversation, she has to inject herself in there.

 

She must be annoying, but how, what is she doing wrong, she’s doing her _best_ , fuck! (She learned fuck last week, along with all the other bleeped-out words. She likes them.)

 

She’s going to a different high school from them. She hopes they won’t forget her.

 

-

 

She’s fourteen, and they forgot her, because of course they did. Who would remember stupid Christine, failure Christine, all-she’s-good-for-is-copying-your-homework Christine?

 

She sings to herself in her room, the songs for the musical she somehow got a good role in at her school. Her sister bangs on the door.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Stop singing so loud, you suck at it. I don’t want to hear it.”

 

Christine feels tears come to her eyes- isn’t she a good singer? Isn’t she? Why is her sister always so mean?

 

… She must deserve it.

 

Christine only sings when she’s home alone. She doesn’t leave her room, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, just goes through the motions.

 

She doesn’t want to be a disturbance.

 

-

 

She’s fifteen.

 

_Stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstop_

 

Her parents are fighting again.

 

_Please stop, I’ve been good, please don’t be mad, don’t yell please I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry_

 

It’s just over the broken dishwasher, but her dad always does this, makes a big speech out of the smallest inconveniences, and her mom always stands there and takes it and tries to argue but always gives in because no one wants to make her dad angry.

 

She does that too.

 

She just wants them to love her.

 

With shaky hands, she reaches for her headphones, and starts blasting her latest musical obsession.

 

 _You always talk, talk, talk all the time_ …

 

She mouths the words as tears stream down her face.

 

-

 

She’s sixteen.

 

“Lunch? Just the two of us?”

 

She sees every moment of her life flash before her eyes, every time she’s been yelled at for saying no, every time she thought it would be okay and it wasn’t, every time she got in trouble for something that was okay three days ago, letting Jake fuck her even though she wasn’t really sure she wanted it and definitely regrets it now _he won’t even admit it happened,_ and drinking that serum, and everything else that has happened.

 

Are they right or wrong?

 

“And any voices in our heads…”

 

They’re screaming at her to not be selfish, some, but others say that a no could make Jeremy angry (she’s heard the stories of stabbings and shootings after rejection) and others say she should go back to Jake, but one…

 

“There might be voices in our heads…”

 

This boy, she swears.

 

“But I swear the voices there will be the regular kind.”

 

He seems so _good_ , and yes he almost destroyed the school (and maybe all of human civilization) but he admitted to it. Jake didn’t. Jake just wanted to get in her cute flower-patterned leggings and really was terrible at emotional reciprocation. Jeremy is so in touch with his emotions, she could talk to him, work through problems instead of being hit with a wall of stagnation and misdirection (what _is_ up with Jake’s parents? Does she even know him?)

 

Every other experience she’s ever had fades away. This is the moment.

 

Her heart tells her one thing.

 

“Me and the voices in my head have made up our collective mind.”

 

No they haven’t, not really. They’re all yelling again, there’s still time to turn back, is she even ready for a relationship this soon, he had the SQUIPs who knows what else there is that he could have, where is his mom?

 

“What do they say we should do..?”

 

But god that voice… so cute, so nervous, he must know this is really risky, but he went for it anyways.

 

She takes his hand.

 

“I think that all of us want to go out with you.”

 

And as he reciprocates, squeezes her hand, she feels it.

 

Nowhere else has she felt it, it’s what she’s been looking for her whole life, through all her agreeing and misguided crushes and struggles to deal with anger and rejection and trust.

 

But this… is love.

 

And the voices go silent, just for a moment.


End file.
